The idea of a well-oiled assembly line churning out gleaming andaffordable new houses, flooded with light and as compact as a ship’scabin, is a well-worn Modernist fable.For the average middle-class American, however, prefabricatedhousing has always lacked sex appeal. The masses tended to prefer atraditional style, no matter how shabbily designed, and never reallybought into it. Nor did most of the industrialist tycoons with themoney to make the dream real.So “Home Delivery: Fabricating theModern Dwelling,” which opens on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, isa delightful surprise. Organized by Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’schief curator of architecture and design, it presents more than 80projects, from humble experiments in suburban living to stunning worksof creative imagination. In a tour de force Mr. Bergdoll was able tobuild five full-scale model houses for the show in a lot just west ofthe museum. The effect is startling: expressions of a suburban utopianworld surrounded by Midtown’s looming skyscrapers.But like allgreat exhibitions “Home Delivery” is not simply a crowd pleaser. It’sthe kind of loving, scholarly achievement that is rare in today’sarchitectural climate, which so often favors cheap spectacle overprobing intellect. Mr. Bergdoll has not only managed to track down someunexpected gems, he has also arranged them in a way that allows us tosee them with fresh eyes. He makes a convincing case that prefabricatedhousing was both a central theme of Modernist history and a dream thatremains very much alive today.To experience the show at fullthrottle, resist the temptation to go straight to the model houses andstart with the main exhibition in the museum’s sixth-floor galleries.It opens with a vision from the mass-produced utopia of tomorrow: twogorgeous wall fragments — one by Ali Rahim and Hina Jamelle, the otherby Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto — that push the limits of customizedcomputer technologies. Their voluptuous surfaces suggest a hybrid ofindustrial materials and free-form organic design.Just above to the right is a projection of a 1920 Buster Keatonfilm in which fumbling young newlyweds try to assemble a prefabricatedhouse. Dropped off the back of a truck, the house’s various parts weremislabeled by the woman’s jilted former suitor. The result, once it isassembled, is a chaotic jumble of tilting walls, irregular windows anddoors that open to nowhere.The film pokes fun at those who spendtheir lives chasing fantasies. But it also hints at the instability atthe core of any creative venture, teasing out one of the exhibition’smost haunting themes: the conflict inherent in the so-called Americandream. In many ways the prefab house embodies the tension between adesire for stability and a quixotic faith in social mobility.Thehistory of prefabricated dwellings is one of false starts and foileddreams. In 1833 a London carpenter identified as H. Manning created oneof the first, the Manning Portable Cottage, for his son, who wassailing off to make his fortune in Australia. Made of precut wood postsand panels, the house could be conveniently packed in a ship’s hold andreassembled. A single man could carry most of its lightweightcomponents, making it ideal for the untamed Australian wilderness. {Thehouse, which Manning produced in a range of styles, became a mildcommercial success.}More inventive still was the 1931 CopperHouse, designed by the Modernist master Walter Gropius. It wasconceived as a system of insulated copper wall panels that could beeasily transported and assembled on site in 24 hours. Despite thehouse’s relatively conventional layout and form, a solid box withpunched-out windows and a pitched roof, the glistening copper exteriorgave it a haunting appearance. The house enjoyed moderatesuccess in Germany. After the Nazis rose to power in 1933, it wasmarketed to Jews fleeing the country for Palestine.
www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/arts/design/18dwel.html